there was no work...

and it was sooooo good. These past four days of no work, no calls, no blackberry messages, no last minute assignments were exactly what I needed- a recharging of the spirit. I love my job, but lately I'd begun to feel that drain, that tiredness that doesn't let up even when you get out of work at a semi-reasonable time of night. Last weekend I realized that I needed more than one day off of work, I needed a good couple of days free of the computer and agreements and clients. Despite some false alarms on Wednesday night, I did get my few days away from work and I feel much better.

This year's Thanksgiving was a new experience for us. Josh's exam schedule and my crazy work schedule kept us from traveling to either Florida or California to visit family, so we decided to stick around the area and visit nearby friends. As Josh spoke to his classmates and found that many of them, particularly some of his foreign friends, had nowhere to go for the holiday, he began extending invitations for people to come to our house. We ended up hosting a whole contingent of students from all over the world- India, Mexico, Columbia and Argentina.

Frankly, last week I was a little overwhelmed by the whole thing. Not only did I have to prepare a whole Thanksgiving dinner, I had to prepare it without my mother-in-law hovering over me giving advice. Plus, as international students, they were wholly unfamiliar with the whole Thanksgiving thing. They had to pick their eyes up off of the floor when I told them we were eating at 4pm. "Four?" Asked one incredulously, "I take my afternoon tea at four!" So I told them not to eat for the whole day in preparation of their Thanksgiving feast.

My fears were for naught, because the dinner went off without a hitch and they were suitably impressed with Thanksgiving and all its spoils. We played Pictionary afterwards, followed by an unsatisfactory game of Scene It. Turns out that foreigners don't do well with games about U.S. movies- go figure.

Friday was spent shopping shopping shopping, Saturday was spent cleaning the house and saying goodbye to a friend moving abroad, and Sunday was spent vegetating around the house and admiring our new television. Her name is Wanda. And I organized my cds, because that could be done in front of Wanda.

Oh, and I put white lights around our railings on the front stoop. Given our half-Jewish family, we don't do much in the way of Christmas decorations, but the husband consented to some decorative white lights, and so I put them up, cursing all the time at the freezing weather and tangled bulbs. We're festive though!

Now I am back at work, ready to take on all client requests and deadlines. I probably have another 25 days in me, then I'll need another mini-vacation.

Hope your weekends were fabulous and restful as well!